Sunday, 13 June 2010

Caramel apple loaf cake

I don’t make that many loaf cakes which is a shame as they have to be the easiest cakes to portion (I think I’ve mentioned my cake-cutting phobia in the past)! They also have a rustic look to them that I find inviting.

This week’s cake muse was the CCD who chose the ingredient of “apples”. I love a good apple cake and picked this recipe as I was intrigued by the caramel topping . Here’s a close up of the topping oozing over the top of the cake:

Having said above that, in theory, loaf cakes are easier to cut, this one was a terror. It was crumbly and soft but I forgive it as it made it divine to eat!

I am very disappointed by the sweet eating habits of society these days. Where I live there are two large supermarkets, a well stocked newsagent and an off licence - not one of them sold toffees, which are needed to make the topping for this cake. What’s wrong with people? Why have they fallen out of love with the humble toffee? Are people too lazy to chew? Luckily, Mr CC found a bag for me further afield - cake crisis averted!

We all loved this cake; it delivers a lot flavourwise. The almost-bitter walnuts cut through the sweetness of the caramel topping and the juicy pockets of apple work nicely with the crumbly light sponge. The sponge contains yoghurt and is therefore extremely soft and light. Here are the cakes when baked (i.e. pre topping):

Add some sinful topping:

The recipe set out below makes one loaf cake; I doubled it to make two.

Beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla until it is pale and smooth.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir in the flour, cinnamon and yoghurt.

Add the chopped apples and stir just enough to combine.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Scatter the walnuts over the top – I kept them centralised, like a walnut Mohican.

Bake for approximately 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the loaf comes out clean.

Place the loaf, still in the tin, on a wire cooling rack.

Now make the topping: place the toffees and cream in a saucepan and gently heat until they melt and combine – stir the whole time (this is very important as the mixture will burn quickly if left unattended)

Leave to cool a little, about 3 minutes or so.

Turn the cake out of the tin and gently pour the topping over the top.

28 comments:

This sounds and looks right up my street - I love toffees and apples together. I may have to give this a try! Also I fully agree with you - what is wrong with people and not eating toffees? Marks and Spencers have a good selection though - I'm always having to resist while in the queue.

Wow! That looks amazing. Yet another of your recipes I have to try. I may as well get my begging over and done with, since it is a foregone conclusion I will make this sometime. May I post your cake in cup measures sometime in the future? Pretty please.

I adore all your apple cake recipes, but I chose to begin with this one, because apple + cake + toffee = automatic win in my book.

The first thing I'd say about the results is: hoo boy, either we have insanely big apples over here, on the continent, or you, islanders, have teeny-tiny ones. I chopped up two medium-biggish Boscops and I ended up adding only a little over one and a half, because the cake started overflowing my mixing bowl! I filled a 1 kg loaf tin... and I still had half as much of the cake mix left, so I used it to fill a sandwich tin. The cake came out deliciously moist, which is no surprise - it had more apple than cake in it - but I spent the 1 h 20 minutes freaking out that the cake will be slack-baked. And, as I suspected the baked apple-toffee topping combination does not disappoint. The cake is definitely worth trying out, just, please, go easy on the apples, people.

Yup, I used a 2lb loaf tin. The cake was sinfully delicious, so I'll definitely attempt to bake it again, I'll just try to be less apple-happy this time. Next on my list is the coble cake - this one should be safer :)

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